Warez ringleader gets over four years in prison

Hew Griffiths, head of the underground piracy group DrinkOrDie, was sentenced …

The head of underground piracy group "DrinkOrDie" was sentenced to 51 months in jail in the US last week on one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. 44-year-old Hew Griffiths pleaded guilty in a US federal court earlier this year to the charges and was extradited to the US from his home in Australia at that time.

"From his home in Australia, Griffiths became one of the most notorious leaders of the underground Internet piracy community by orchestrating the theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars in copyrighted material," said Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher in a statement.

DrinkOrDie—founded in Russia in 1993—is estimated to have been responsible for copying and distributing more than $50 million of copyrighted content like movies, music, and software, based on the retail value of the copies distributed by the group. The group was dismantled in 2001 after being subject to 70 raids in the US, UK, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Australia.

Arguably, the revenue actually lost by the software, music, and movie industries was probably considerably lower than $50 million. Many of those downloads were likely made by individuals who weren't looking to buy in the first place, and groups like the Business Software Alliance have been heavily criticized recently for their methodologies in calculating revenue losses due to piracy.

Griffiths has already spent almost three years at a detention center in Australia before his extradition to the US in February. The judge who sentenced him apparently took this into account when determining how much time Griffiths will serve in the US, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, and said that Griffiths will only have to serve another 15 months in jail.